Differential-pressure measuring apparatus with improved arrangement for coupling pressures to a semiconductor sensor

ABSTRACT

A differential-pressure instrument the body of which forms a sealed interior pressure chamber containing a fill-liquid and includes a pair of flexible diaphragms to apply to the fill-liquid an input differential pressure to be sensed by an IC strain-gauge chip within the chamber. A spring plate divides the interior pressure chamber into two sections and is deflectable in response to differential pressures. Overrange pressure protection is provided by a valve which is closable by an elastomeric pad carried by the spring plate when the plate deflection reaches a pre-set amount. Valve closure locks the fill-liquid in place alongside the plate to provide an incompressible liquid back-up preventing further deflection of the plate, thus preventing further increases in differential pressure across the IC chip. In one embodiment, valves are placed on both sides of the spring plate to protect against both high-side and low-side overrange pressures. In another embodiment, a washer is secured to the spring plate to provide a relatively high spring-rate for deflection in the high-side direction, so that the instrument can more readily be employed for measuring high-span differential pressures.

This application is a divisional of Ser. No. 741,538 filed June 5, 1985,now U.S. Pat. No. 4,693,121.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to differential-pressure measuring apparatusadapted for use with industrial processes. More particularly, thisinvention relates to improvements in such apparatus for preventingdamage due to overrange pressure conditions.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Differential pressures in industrial processes are measured for a widevariety of purposes. The largest application probably is that offlow-measurement, wherein the instrument measures the differentialpressure produced across an orifice plate in a flow pipe in order todevelop a fluid flow-rate signal. There are however many otherapplications, such as measurement of pressure drops across pumps, valvesor the like.

For many years, differential-pressure measuring apparatus typicallycomprised transmitters of the force-balance type, such as shown in U.S.Pat. No. 3,564,923, issued to H. W. Nudd, et al. In recent years,transmitters which do not employ force-balance techniques have grown inimportance. U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,651 (E. O. Olsen et al) shows one suchdesign having important advantages.

Differential-pressure instruments typically include a sealed interiorpressure chamber containing a fill-liquid. A pair of flexible diaphragmsare mounted at opposite ends of the pressure chamber to apply an inputdifferential pressure to the fill-liquid. In one advantageousarrangement, the pressure differential applied to the fill-liquid issensed by an IC strain-gauge chip mounted within the sealed chamber. Thepresent invention is disclosed hereinbelow as embodied in such astrain-gauge type of instrument, but it will be clear that the inventioncan be employed with other types of instruments.

Differential-pressure instruments need special protection from overrangepressure conditions, especially to prevent damage to the commonly usedpressure-sensing devices such as an IC chip as described above.Overrange pressures develop in various ways, frequently by operatorerror. For example, when an instrument is being placed into or taken outof service, the operator may inadvertently allow full static pressure(e.g. 2000 psi) to be connected to only one side of the instrument. Withan instrument designed to handle differential pressures of, say, 20 psimaximum (as in flow measurements), the application of 2000 psi to onlyone side will, unless effective protective measures are taken, almostcertainly destroy the instrument.

One approach to providing protection against over-range pressures is toemploy back-up plates for the flexible diaphragms, as disclosed forexample in the above-mentioned Olsen et al patent. In such a design,each flexible diaphragm is arranged to bottom on the correspondingback-up plate in response to an overrange differential pressure. Thisprevents further movement of the diaphragm, and thus prevents transferof any additional fill-liquid from the region adjacent the bottomeddiaphragm.

Although this approach can be effective in certain applications, such asin the above Olsen et al patent, where the instrument sensor effectivelyresponds to the force developed by a range diaphragm, problems areencountered when this approach is applied to instruments wherein thesensor employs a third diaphragm or plate which deflects withdifferential pressure thus allowing the slack diaphragm to deflect untilit bottoms on its back-up plate. For example, because the volume of thefill-liquid expands and contracts with changes in instrumenttemperature, the amount of differential pressure required to effectbottoming of the diaphragm on its back-up plate varies correspondingly.Prior designs of apparatus for achieving overrange protection also havebeen relatively costly to manufacture, and particularly have not beenwell adapted for use in a multi-model family of essentially identicalinstruments for covering the full range of spans needed for industrialprocesses.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one preferred embodiment to be described hereinbelow in detail, theinvention is employed in an instrument of the type including a sealedinterior pressure chamber containing a fill-liquid and having a pair offlexible diaphragms through which the input differential pressure isapplied to the fill-liquid to be sensed by an IC strain-gauge chip. Inaccordance with a principal aspect of the invention, the instrumentfurther comprises a spring plate dividing the sealed chamber into a pairof sealed sections. This plate is deflectable by the applieddifferential pressure. A valve is positioned at one side of the springplate to be closed by deflection of the spring plate when thedifferential pressure reaches a pre-set level.

Closure of this valve seals off liquid communication between (a) thefill-liquid region immediately adjacent the spring plate, on the valveside, and (b) the remainder of the fill-liquid in that section of thepressure chamber (primarily the fill-liquid adjacent the flexiblediaphragm for that section). The fill-liquid immediately adjacent thespring plate is thereby locked in place, and provides an effectiveback-up preventing further deflection of the plate. Thus, thedifferential pressure across the plate (and also across the IC chipserving as the pressure-sensor) is limited to the amount which producethe deflection causing closure of the valve.

In most instruments employing the invention, valves will be placed onboth sides of the spring plate in order to protect against overrangepressures in either direction. In such an arrangement, the two valvesfunction in identical fashion, as described above.

With this invention, the overrange pressure setting is not affected bytemperature because it is determined by the spacing between the valveand the spring plate. This spacing is fixed at the time of manufactureand is the same for all temperatures.

Other objects, aspects and advantages of the invention will in part bepointed out in, and in part be apparent from, the following descriptionof preferred embodiments of the invention, considered together with theaccompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a section view, partly in elevation, showing adifferential-pressure instrument based on the present invention;

FIGS. 2A through 2C show the internal spring plate in differentoperating positions;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view, partly cut away, showing the IC straingauge chip with its mounting post;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing how the IC strain gauge chip isassembled to the header;

FIGS. 5A through 5C show a modified form of spring plate in differentoperating positions;

FIGS. 6A through 6C show different types of washers for use with themodified spring plate arrangement of FIGS. 5A through 5C.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a differential-pressure metercomprising upper and lower housings 10, 12 formed with process pressureconnections 14, 16 for the low and high input pressures respectively.These input pressures are directed through passages 18, 20 to respectiveflexible diaphragms 22, 24. (Note: The normal operating position of theinstrument is with the diaphragms in a vertical plane, but theinstrument is shown rotated 90° to simplify the description whichfollows.)

The diaphragms 22, 24 form part of a cylindrical differential-pressurecell generally indicated at 26, and secured firmly between the upper andlower housings 10, 12 by a set of bolts 28. This cell 26 comprises athree-part assembly, with a generally disc-shaped support member 30 atthe top, a generally disc-shaped header 32 beneath the support member30, and a cylindrical cup member 34 at the bottom.

The diaphragms 22, 24 are so-called slack diaphragms, having springrates as low as possible (ideally zero). These two diaphragms togetherwith the associated body structure of the cell 26 define a sealedinterior pressure chamber containing a fill-liquid, e.g. a silicone oilof relatively low viscosity. The differential pressure applied to thediaphragms is the input signal to the instrument, and is sensed by an ICstrain gauge chip 36 within the header 32, in a manner to be described.

Adjacent the IC chip 36 is a circular spring plate 38 which is welded atits periphery to a support ring 39 so as to divide the sealed interiorpressure chamber of the cell 26 into two separate sections. Processpressure applied to the upper diaphragm 22 is transferred to the uppersurface of this spring plate by fill-liquid in the central bore of arelatively short tubular valve body 40 presenting a valve seat at itslower end and threadedly mounted in the support member 30. Similarly,process pressure applied to the lower diaphragm 24 is transferred to thelower surface of the spring plate by fill-liquid in the central bore ofan elongate tubular valve body 42 presenting a valve seat at its upperend and threadedly mounted in a tube 43 coaxial with the cup member 34.The spring plate 38 deflects in response to the applied differentialpressure in accordance with its spring rate. Normally, the spring platewill deflect upwardly, since the higher process pressure is on its lowersurface.

The spring plate 38 carries at its center a pair of elastomeric pads 44,46 engageable with one or the other of the valve seats of the valvebodies 40, 42 upon sufficient deflection of the plate. These pads mayfor example be made of resilient material such as "BUNA N" coated nylonfabric. When engaged with the valve seats of either of the valve bodies,these pads close off the internal passages of the valves so that nofill-fluid can flow through.

The differential pressure across the spring plate 38 appears also acrossthe IC chip 36. For this purpose, the upper surface of the chip isexposed directly to the fill-liquid immediately below the spring plate38, and the lower surface of the chip is connected through interiorpassageways 48, 50, 52 to the fill-liquid region immediately above theplate 38. A liquid-fill-port 54 connects to one of these passageways 48to provide for inserting the fill-liquid into that section of theinterior pressure chamber during manufacture; a second fill-port (notshown) is provided for the other fill-liquid section below the springplate.

If there is no differential pressure across the spring plate 38, theplate will assume a neutral position as shown in FIG. 2A. If a normal or"high side" differential pressure is applied to the instrument, thespring plate 38 will deflect upwardly in accordance with the magnitudeof the pressure. If this differential pressure exceeds a pre-set level(typically set at 150% of the instrument span), the spring plate willdeflect to the position (see FIG. 2B) where the upper pad 44 closes offthe upper valve 40. Thus, the fill-liquid in the region immediatelyadjacent the upper surface of the spring plate 38 is locked in place.That is, no more fill-liquid can be transferred from that region up tothe region adjacent the upper slack diaphragm 22.

The fill-liquid thus locked into the space above the spring plate 38serves as an effectively non-compressible back-up support for the springplate. Any further increase in differential pressure beyond the pre-setoverrange level simply increases correspondingly the pressure of thisliquid back-up support. Accordingly, such additional differentialpressure does not increase the differential pressure across the springplate beyond the predetermined set level. Similarly, the differentialpressure on the IC chip 36 also will not increase beyond the pre-setlevel at which the pad 44 closes off the valve 40.

If, now, the overrange differential pressure occurs in the reverse or"low side" direction, i.e. where the pressure above the spring plate 38exceeds the pressure below the plate, the spring plate will deflectdownwardly. If that differential pressure exceeds a pre-set magnitude,the lower pad 46 will engage the valve seat of the lower valve 42 toclose off that valve (see FIG. 2C). Thus, the fill-liquid in the regionimmediately beneath the lower surface of the spring plate 38 will belocked in place, and will serve as a back-up support preventing anyfurther downward deflection of that plate. As described above, this willlimit the differential pressure across the plate 38 (and also across theIC chip 36) to the pre-set differential pressure producing the valveclosure.

In the preferred embodiment described herein, the chip 36 is constructedin such a way that it is especially sensitive to low-side overrangedifferential pressures, i.e. wherein the pressure above the spring plate38 is higher than that below the plate. Referring now to FIG. 3, thechip comprises an upper silicon part 60 carrying a set of diffused boronresistors 62 to which leads 64 are connected to develop the instrumentoutput signal in known fashion. This silicon part is etched to anextremely small thickness (depending upon the instrument span) and issecured to a base member 66 conventionally formed of Pyrex to provide amatched temperature coefficient of expansion. With this configuration,it will be understood that the chip cannot withstand very great low-sidedifferential pressures without the upper part 60 being lifted up fromits support base 66, or the base 66 being lifted up from the post 68 towhich it is adhesively secured. Thus, the low-side differential pressureoverrange setting typically may be as low as about 15 psi, regardless ofthe span of the instrument, in order to assuredly prevent damage to thechip.

FIG. 4 shows more clearly the relationship between the chip 36 and itsmounting post 68, which is located in a small well 68A in the header 32.This post has a diameter smaller than either of the rectangular chipdimensions, and provides mechanical isolation between the chip and theremainder of the instrument. That is, stresses developed in theinstrument from any of a variety of causes, such as bending or boltstresses, etc., are not transmitted to the chip in significant measure,and thus do not alter the output signal developed by thedifferential-pressure-induced strains in the chip.

It may be noted that the valves 40, 42 close after a predeterminedamount of movement of the spring plate 38 away from itszero-differential position. This arrangement lends itself well toeconomical manufacture, since during assembly the valves can be adjustedto the proper overrange pressure settings simply by rotating the valvebodies in their screw threads. That is, such rotation shifts the axialpositioning of the valve bodies and thereby controls the amount ofdeflection required for valve closure. This makes it readily possible toset the valves for closure at a desired shut-off pressure.

The valve bodies as so adjusted can then be fixed in place and sealed intheir threads by a conventional adhesive. This is superior to settingthe valve closure by use of close machine tolerances in the parts. Italso will be seen that the two valves 40, 42 can readily be set forclose-off at different pressures, simply by adjusting their axialpositions to provide different required deflections of the spring plate38 for close-off.

In practice, the displacement of the pads 44, 46 required for valveclosure may typically be about 0.006". Such small displacement avoidsthe need for a large volume of fill-liquid which in turn further reducestemperature errors caused by liquid volume changes working against thestiffness of the slack diaphragms (already a low value, by design).

For applications involving relatively high differential pressures, e.g.for spans in the hundreds of pounds, the use of a single spring plate 38for both high and low side overrange protection is generally notappropriate. This is because, as discussed above, the chip 36 mustalways be protected on the low side against pressures greater than about15 psi, regardless of the overrange setting for the high side. Thus, athigh differentials, a single plate 38 would have to travel a muchgreater distance to close the high-side valve than to close the low-sidevalve. This could lead to excessive plate displacements and overlycritical valve positioning.

It has been found that this problem can be solved by a dual-platearrangement such as illustrated in FIG. 5A. This arrangement comprises aspring plate 38 as before, but additionally includes a relatively thickcircular washer 70 secured at its outer edge to the periphery of thespring plate, e.g. by electron-beam welding, which also serves to fastenthe composite plate structure to the ring 39. When a high-side overrangepressure develops, both the plate and washer deflect upwardly together,as shown in FIG. 5B, until the upper pad 44 closes off the upper valve40. The spring constant of the washer and plate together is sufficientlyhigh that the deflection required for such valve closure will still berelatively small for high differential pressures.

On a low side overrange, only the spring plate 38 will deflect. That is,the central portions of the spring plate will move independently of thewasher, as shown in FIG. 5C. The hole 72 in the center of the washerallows the pressure of the fill-liquid to act on the plate 38 to effectsuch independent movement. Thus, it will be seen that the requireddeflection for valve closure on the low side can be achieved with arelatively low differential pressure, while at the same time providingfor valve closure on the high side by a relatively large differentialpressure.

The thickness of the washer 70 and the diameter of the center hole 72determine the effective spring rate of the washer. The thicker thewasher, or the smaller the diameter, the greater the spring rate. Thus,a multi-model family of essentially identical instruments but withdifferent-sized washers 70 can be provided for covering the full rangeof spans needed for industrial processes. For example, the washer 70shown in FIGS. 5A-5C (and also FIG. 6B) can be used to provide aninstrument with spans of between 0-25 psi and 0-100 psi (the 4:1turn-down in span being effected by suitable electronic circuitry ofknown type to which the output leads 64 are connected, but not shownherein). For spans of 0-7.5 psi to 0-30 psi, a thinner washer with asmaller central hole may be used, as shown at 70A in FIG. 6A.Alternatively, for higher spans of from 0-75 psi to 0-300 psi, a washerof the same thickness as that shown in FIGS. 5A-5C may be used, but witha smaller central hole, as shown at 70C in FIG. 6C.

For still higher spans of, say, from 0-250 psi to 0-1000 psi or from0-750 psi to 0-2000 psi, the same washer 70C can be employed, withouthowever using any valve 40 for high-side protection. This is because thethickness of the chip upper part 60 will, for those spans, be sufficientto prevent damage from high-side overrange pressures up to 2000 psi. Ifthe pressure reaches such an overrange value, the washer 70C may touchthe opposite flat surface of the support member 30, but this will haveno effect on the operation of the instrument. It should be noted,however, that even though the high-side overrange valve 40 may beomitted for these high differential-pressure instruments, it still isimportant to include the low-side overrange valve 42, to avoid anydamage due to low-side (reverse) differential pressure of greater thanabout 15 psi.

It will be seen from the above description that the present inventionprovides a differential-pressure meter having important advantages. Theoverrange protection arrangement assures effective functioning withoutsignificant errors due to changes in temperature. It offers economicalmanufacture, especially by making it possible to provide a series ofessentially identical instruments capable of covering all of theconventional process pressure spans, e.g. from a span of zero to 20inches of water up to a span of zero to 2000 psi.

Although preferred embodiments of the invention have been describedhereinabove in detail, this has been for the purpose of illustrating theprinciples of the invention, and should not necessarily be construed aslimiting of the invention since it is apparent that those skilled in theart can make many modified arrangements based on the principles of theinvention without departing from the true scope thereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. In a differential pressure measuring instrumentof the type having a body formed with a sealed interior pressure chambercontaining a fill-liquid and provided at opposite ends of the body withrespective flexible diaphragms through which an input differentialpressure may be applied to said fill-liquid, said instrument furtherincluding sensing means responsive to said differential pressure toproduce a corresponding output signal;that improvement comprising: aspring plate mounted in said body between said flexible diaphragms andextending completely across said pressure chamber so as to divide saidpressure chamber into first and second separated fill-liquid sections;each of said fill-liquid sections comprising a first region adjacent theflexible diaphragm for that section and a second region adjacent thecorresponding side of said spring plate, with said first and secondregions being connected by respective fluid passages; an IC chip toserve as said sensing means and mounted in the portion of saidinstrument body which is between said spring plate and one of saidflexible diaphragms; means to provide at one surface of the IC chip thepressure of the fill-liquid in the chamber section including the side ofsaid spring plate which is adjacent said body portion; and liquidpassageway means connected to the chamber section including the side ofsaid spring plate which is remote from said body portion, saidpassageway means extending around the outer edge of said spring plateinto said body portion to a region adjacent the surface of said IC chipwhich is opposite said one surface thereof, whereby said IC chipreceives between said two surfaces thereof the differential pressureexisting between said two chamber sections.
 2. Apparatus as claimed inclaim 1, wherein said body is cylindrical about an axis extendingbetween said flexible diaphragms, perpendicular thereto.
 3. Apparatus asclaimed in claim 2, wherein said body portion is formed with a cavitycontaining said IC chip.
 4. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, whereinsaid flexible diaphragms and said spring plate are at leastsubstantially parallel to one another;said IC chip surfaces being atleast substantially parallel to said flexible diaphragms, and saidspring plate.
 5. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said IC chipis located in a cavity in said body portion; anda mounting post in saidcavity supporting said IC chip at the end thereof.
 6. Apparatus asclaimed in claim 5, wherein said post has cross-sectional dimensionswhich are smaller than any parallel dimension of said IC chip. 7.Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said body portion is formedwith a liquid fill-port connected to said liquid passageway means.